


Thirteen and awake

by microcanonical



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bipolar Disorder, Drug Use, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Possible americanisms?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-13
Packaged: 2017-11-12 00:56:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/microcanonical/pseuds/microcanonical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In your household, you are a source of worry. You are Too Much To Handle. You are not actually on drugs (yet), merely somewhat sleepless, and as a result alternatively hyperactive and dazed. But one side effect of not being able to sleep is that the hours in a day will double. And these hours must be filled. Last night, you studied anatomy, and you thought briefly that you could be a surgeon. The human body, you thought, is marvelous-- all that fine tuned machinery, and yet that relative sturdiness, that resilience. You learned the bones of your hands and feet yesterday, and they were so beautifully assembled, scaphoid-lunate-pisiform--"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sherlock's thirteenth birthday, with foreshadowing of things to come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirteen and awake

**Author's Note:**

> I started out trying to write something using the first paragraph of DFW's Forever Overhead as a jumping off point, and this happened. Criticism welcomed, first fanfic. 
> 
> My depiction of bipolar disorder may be inaccurate-- if you find anything that is wrong or offensive, please let me know. I'm mostly drawing on personal experience/various books including Madness (by Marya Hornbacher), Scattershot (by David Lovelace), and everything by Kay Redfield Jamison.

January 6th comes, icy and frigid. Happy Birthday. Your thirteenth birthday has arrived. The big One-Three, the seventh prime, aluminum on the periodic table.

On this day, you are a teenager.

Good riddance.

 

***

 

You lie awake in your bed for hours and watch the clock transition from You Are 12 to Congratulations, You Are 13-- you were born at 1:02 am on this day, a fact that lacks any particular importance but has lodged itself in your mind for reasons you cannot fathom. Sleep continues to elude you as it has for the last few months. But no matter-- you didn't expect anything else. And the silent darkness of these hours lends itself to brooding, to a slower contemplation than you're used to. Not as good as sleep, but some form of rest nonetheless.

But as the weak sun finds its way in through the cracks around the drapes (you have taken to sitting in the dark too much, this is another _cause for concern_ ), you feel a vague unease taking hold that you will label as disgust for the day ahead. Restlessness. You want rid of it, even just for a little while.

You stand and go to open a false bottom in your desk. You light a stolen cigarette and inhale deeply, and imagine the smoke curling around your lungs. Cancer statistics pop into your mind unbidden, but you ignore them (you are immortal, you are fated to die young). Harder to ignore is the fact that the smell will stick to you for the next few hours, and your mother will notice. Most days (especially these), you wouldn't care and her voice, alternating between furious and tremorous would slide off you as you walked about the house unconcerned and self-contained.

But today is your thirteenth, and in an uncharacteristic decision that surprises even yourself, you have decided to be sweet. Or as sweet as you, the wayward second son can manage.

It is your birthday, but nobody besides your brother will be arriving to celebrate. Your father is away on business as always, and after the fiasco that was last year's birthday celebration (let it be said that you asked your mother to please, please not throw a party or there would be Consequences), there will be no one else.

This does not bother you as it would bother most other boys your age. This is a general fact, well known knowledge among relatives and classmates, nearing truism. Sherlock-is-unlike-most-boys-his-age-in-that-insert behavior. Sherlock does not _like_ girls. Sherlock may not _like_ anyone. Sherlock would rather read textbooks than read comic books. Sherlock will walk out of class when he is bored, will talk back when he chooses, and genuinely will not care when he is eventually, inevitably screamed at for being so _immature_ .

You do not feel immature. You do not feel young, by any sense of the word. But you do feel a stirring, a growing awareness of the fact that you do not like the way the days slide by. The hours stretch past the limit of your patience. Sometimes the cacophany of the world screams inside your skull, and sometimes your mind is quickquickquick and the world's inertia smothers you.

You do not care whether you are liked by the boys in school, at any rate-- why should you? A group of boys that are so predictable, so dull that you know at a glance who will pick a fight or throw insults. You do not need or want them at your party. Or ever. Or anyone, for that matter. This is what you tell yourself. You will believe this for the next fifteen years.

 

***

 

You hear your mother's voice calling you from downstairs. You stare out your window (snow, black trees, a wide expanse) and do not answer, but you put out your cigarette.

Last night, you heard your mother crying on the phone to your father. From the sound of things, she is terrified by the thought of you entering your wayward teens. You are wayward already, so who knows what difficulties these next seven years will throw her way. She expounded the dangers of unchecked hormones and the lack of immediately available role models of a similar gender, and the weird sheen on your eyes that are making her suspect drugs already, oh whatever will she do.

Last night, you had been awake for the 43rd hour in a row. You were dazed, simultaneously exhilarated and enraged by your newfound inability to just _shut off_ , but you had the sense of mind to remain silent ourside her door as she sobbed quietly, to think things through. Apparently, your mother still has not realized that your sleep cycles have been growing more and more nonexistent these last few months. She chose the late hour to call your father for a reason-- your mother, by habit sleeps and wakes early, so she wanted to make sure you did not overhear. This compulsion to hide painful truths is called love, at least by most people. (As the years go by and certain facts about you gradually come to light, you will come to look upon this convention with increasing disdain-- it never helped you.) Your mother loves you, and so does your father, albeit in a more distant way. At times, you suspect you may even love them back. But they do not like you much. After all, why should they? You are condescending, unaffectionate, and generally contemptuous.

In your household, you are a source of worry. You are Too Much To Handle. You are not actually on drugs (yet), merely somewhat sleepless, and as a result alternatively hyperactive and dazed. But one side effect of not being able to sleep is that the hours in a day will double. And these hours must be filled. Last night, you studied anatomy, and you thought briefly that you could be a surgeon. The human body, you thought, is marvelous-- all that fine tuned machinery, and yet that relative sturdiness, that resilience. You learned the bones of your hands and feet yesterday, and they were so beautifully assembled, scaphoid-lunate-pisiform--

But now you've learned them. And tomorrow you will have every page of your anatomy book memorized, and will have to find something else to entertain youself with. More chemistry books perhaps. But you have been banned from the library, which in retrospect, you realize, is quite a shame.

You want another cigarette. Badly. But you hear a sigh from downstairs, and remember your promise. To be just a little less of whatever you are, just for today.

 

***

 

Several hours filled with unwanted fussing and an accidentally broken plate pass with teeth-grinding slowness. So much so that when the doorbell rings, you all but run to open it in an uncharacteristic display of open affection.

It makes your mother happy, this unguarded moment. You see it-- the slight quirk of the lip, quickly hidden. Happy that Sherlock is acting like the child he is supposed to be growing out of, the child that he never really was (but his mother desperately wanted). You refrain rolling your eyes.

But your mother is right to think of this moment as special, to want to hold onto it with all her might, as insignificant as it seems to you now. Because truth be told, this will be one of your last sincere interactions with your brother. Cherish it (though of course, you won't). Somehow, he's known to bring you a set of antique surgical tools, which you will examine and admire more closely in private. He notes that you look tired, and you shrug it off. He nods, and greets your mother, who responds with a smile of quiet wistfulness, and a look of such pure adoration that you feel something clench deep inside you.

And herein lies the problem. You do not care if you are liked or loved-- by anyone! (you do not, you do not, you are above such things) but there is such transparent relief in her expression that the twist of annoyance in your stomach grows ever tighter every time you see it. You think, _she could try to be less obvious_ . Normally you'd translate this into a sneer and some cutting remark, but today you hold back. You are secretly impressed with yourself (such self-restraint!)

Here is the unfortunate truth of it: you are certain that you love your brother, because at times he seems to understand. Specifically _what_ he understands is hard to define, but somehow he does and you adore him for it. But the only problem is that every time he is around, your parents have _thank god we have one successful son_ written across their faces with a painful clarity. It is a silent reprimand that is, inexplicably, infinitely stronger than anything they could/have shouted at you-- and it pisses you off to no end. It is at these moments that you willl decide in a very typical teenager-ish manner, that you will piss off your parents right back by whatever methods available to you.

And so, despite the fact that you adore your brother you will say terrible things to him. Because you are a convincing liar he will come to believe that you mean them. And eventually, in the next few years (can you hear the oncoming tide, coming to drag you in?) you will resent him for believing you. And since most of your teenage years will soon be lost to your memory, you will escape them with a vague but deep-seated resentment without an associated source.

No matter. You'll listen to the resentment anyway, and continue to say terrible resentful things.

Your only clue will be a mysterious, crushing sadness that will strike only occasionally during much later birthdays, when you will recieve unmarked packages, delivered by unseen messengers with silent cars and careful feet. As you leave them in a closet, unopened and uncertain as to why you aren't discarding them outright, you will feel a strangeness hit you with such strength that it takes your breath away. You will sit down and feel shaken. You will start to shake in earnest. You will convince yourself this is nothing more than a lack of food taking it's toll and make yourself a nice cup of coffee-- not to escape the tremors, but to have an better explanation for them. You will turn your attention elsewhere, every time. This is one of the few mysteries to come that you will never figure this out.

Alas.

 

***

 

Approximately five weeks from now, you will go to a new school, both for a more challenging curriculum and the fact that you were expelled from your last school. You are tall and the dark circles under your eyes make you seem older than you are (though the second you speak, the pitch of your voice is a dead giveaway). Another boy with long hair and a stupid hat will attempt to sell you a bag of small orange pills. You will accept, and you will consider organic structures and enzyme kinetics before you swallow them dry.

You are very, very, smart for your age, but you will never learn the trick of stopping yourself from making spectacularly stupid decisions. The two choices will present themselves, and inexplicably, you will be dragged towards one. You will walk towards the edge of decisions and promptly throw yourself off without a second thought. The part of your brain that whispers _no_ will watch, sometimes, with fascination as your body and mind seem to split in two. A Sherlock-puppet cut from its strings will make it's own decision. A thin smile. A slow, curious glance. A surreptitious handshake. The interesting choice a foregone conclusion. (And a wiser you sits somewhere in a very dark place behind your eyes, and screams _NO_ in a voice drowned out by louder desires.)

This is what will happen: slivers of speed will strike your brain, and a switch that's been secretly sitting in your brain since you were very young will suddenly turn ON. Colors. Thought. Haziness and puzzles, then clarity and solutions. Questions to be asked. Answers to be confirmed. People suddenly interesting-- what did you miss before?

You will fall in love with this clarity, this speed of thought, this sheer momentum of your entire being. And after a few more dubious transactions, you will become aware that something has changed. You will no longer need the pills for those flying heights- your brain seems to have a knack for such things, and will manufacture them itself. The effect is doubled.

At times, your brain will give up and flop down, into the mud. You will sleep for days, then months, kept alive on the thought that you will soon be _you_ again, and if not soon, then eventually. _You_ are quick and dazzling, fearless and impulsive, and when you will chase murderers and jump from building to building, you will think yourself terribly clever. You will be a little too much in love with yourself during these moments. You will need an observer, a second chorus to laud you in your moments of glory.

You are intended to be a creature that chases extremes in others and in yourself. It will make things interesting, to say the least. You will match wits with the devious and the cruel, and will love and be loved only by the very best.

 

***

 

But for now, you are still seated at the table much too large for the three of you for your birthday dinner. It is cold because your house is never really properly heated, but you don't really mind.

You make small talk, or at least you try. Your effort seems well appreciated. Your mother smiles. Your brother grins in a way that he reserves just for you, and wishes you good luck driving your mother insane for the next good portion of her life. Your mother groans (but only half-jokingly), and gives you a tentative hug. You hug her back. You eat the store-bought cake with candles, and for the two of them, you are a normal boy.

The plunge lies ahead, not too far now. After that day, you will never be this person again. You will not be capable of it. There will be wild cycles-- heights so high they leave you breathless, and moods so black and thick that they leave you choking. When a cycle ends, you will remember it as a dream. And like dreams, they will slip away the more desperately you will grasp at them. This is how you will learn to delete memories. There's a trick to it: a thought settling, a quick disturbance, and--

There. Gone.

This day, too, will be gone. An involuntary deletion, collateral damage. Can you see it now, the signs? Are the colors in this room a little too bright for this time of day? Do you feel a fluctuation, an unease, a slight letting go? Or as Lowell put it, a funny creeping feeling in the spine?

You are about to become an addict, then very, very ill. Somehow, with Mycroft pulling strings you will graduate from university with perfect grades in exam-based classes and failing ones for classes you have to show up to. After you graduate, he will visit you. He will watch you sneeze and spatter blood down the front of your shirt. He will stare and you will stare back, daring him into something you haven't quite decided, but daring him nonetheless. Your parents will consider disowning you. They will never stop loving you, of course, but they will eventually lose faith. In turn, you will forget about them. You will become self absorbed. You will suffer during these soon-to-be-lost years, and they will harden you. An overdose. Starvation through self-neglect. Freezing nights spent walking through streets without a coat, trying to shake off an impossible energy. But if these things are remembered, they will be weak, half-formed ghosts. You will be one step removed from it all-- an impassionate observer of a half-preserved past. In retrospect, you will watch yourself pulled off the pavement on a freezing night by a police officer. What will you remember? Not the certainty that this was the night you were going to die, or the alternation between quiet resignment and blinding terror. Not the realization that you had spent your entire life telling people to leave you alone, at that at long last they had finally obeyed. You will instead remember the pattern of the cobblestones and the fact that the police officer's hand was missing a ring (recently failed marriage). You will think _I walked through hell, but it wasn't that bad._ And the things you forget completely will remove parts of you. If you don't remember much of being a child yourself, it's easier to stand over a boy's broken body without flinching.

You will find your true calling by virtue of a near-fatal stabbing when you chase your first criminal. It will provide a surprising rush, followed by a hazy near-calm. And after that, things will get better. Somewhat. You will have an outlet for this madness that society smiles upon.

But the loneliness will be harder to escape. Because you will make a game of dissecting people at a glance, and what you will find....well. You will be disappointed. Or perhaps disgusted. As you will grow accustomed to physical horrors, you'll soon grow immune to that too. You'll put nobody on a pedestal, so nobody can ever really fall. You will have no heroes.

By some sequence of random miracles, you will grow old. You will even grow old with a friend whose so-called failings you are willing to overlook. When you die, you will not actually be lonely-- you will have come to love this friend. But this friend's mind will not match yours, and though your loneliness will eventually cease (you are lonely now, but do you know it yet?), you will never cease to be alone.

 

***

 

Still, you have the few minutes left of this day. Your brother has left (too soon, you think secretly), and you sit by your bedroom window and return a wave as he drives away. You breathe on the window and trace your initials on the fog clouding the glass- SH. You feel almost peaceful, and then the clock strikes twelve. Your birthday is over. You no longer have to be sweet. In the morning, you will return to being a holy terror, though not out of malice. You are a teenager and an affliction is taking hold, though you will never  _really_ admit to it. Neither will the majority of your family, save one. 

Twelve. There's no thirteen on the clock. I've run out of time, you think to yourself. (In truth, you almost have.) But the thought is quickly dismissed as silly. You are thirteen, a teenager! and though you are embarassed for it, you let yourself feel slightly thrilled for being just a little more grown up.

You sit there for the next few hours, listening to the soft ticking, watching light peek over the edge of the fence as night gives way to morning. It will be warmer than the day before. The sun reaches you where you sit and you let your head bob and your eyes drift shut. The light shines yellow through your eyelids, and sleep comes as a welcome surprise. It is the first time in approximately three days. You sink into welcome emptiness-- away from this house that feels like a prison, these people that you detest, this deep loneliness you cannot admit to, cannot understand. From this world you must return to. This gift of a mind you must live in, and be tortured by in turn.

You are destined to become genuinely extraordinary. And with some help, you will live through it all. But not all of you will survive. You are going to do things that will have irreversible consequences. You are going to do things that hurt you so badly that your family will regret them for you, with a sharpness that borders on physical pain. But you are going to be remembered. A legend, in your own right.

You will never really care about such things. During your life, you will care about precious few things, though in the end, you will have your own special brand of regrets. When you are a far older man and dying, you will try to reach back to these days. You will try to remember the boy you were, looking into a mirror to try and reconstruct a smoother, scowling face. And you will wonder this, in the way that old men do: If you had the chance, what would you tell yourself, this child who is so very young and yet feels so very old?

_I'm afraid_ , you would say,  _this is going to hurt_ . And perhaps  _Good luck_ .

And you would just leave it at that.

 

_Happy Birthday._

 


End file.
